Tag Archives: knitting

ready for grafting!

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I know it’s dark, but I really like this photo — the randomness of the backdrop, the light streaming through the front door, the bright red bookshelf that is mostly empty now — it works for me. I realize, though, that you might actually want to see the sock, so here’s another shot:

I love this sock. It fits perfectly, and the yarn really makes the heel stitches pop. I can see several super simple short sock pairs (say that 5 times fast) in my future. You know, once I knit the mate to this one.

Another Monday morning sleepy dog picture for you — I absolutely adore how ridiculous Boh is when he is sleeping. We did a lot of frolicking this weekend — so much so that Boh refused to budge from the couch ALL DAY yesterday. I even had to coax him towards the door to go outside. He just wanted to lounge, sleep, dream (translation: twitch) and sigh. Life is hard when you’re a dog.

Life is also hard when you are a sleepy person who has to go to work on Monday morning…but I do think there is time to kitchener that sock to completion before I go.

May your Monday be filled with sunshine and coffee!

pinwheels and parties.

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Remember pinwheel blanket number two? The one I needed to finish in time for the pre-wedding party of two friends? Well, you can breathe easy. I finished it. (I mean, I may have blocked it in my car and woven in the ends on the back porch of a building said friends were standing in…but I finished it and they loved it. I’m hoping they’ll send me one of the pictures they took with it/me.)

I would have finished it earlier, I swear, except one of these two friends ended up coming into town and staying at my house on Wednesday to work with us for a few days. I couldn’t very well work on it in front of him, could I?

Anyway, the work we did required a road trip (with a slew of 7 year olds) to the base camp of the wilderness education foundation I work for. Though it was crazy, I did manage to snap a sunrise picture for you:

Looking northward, Friday, 5:50 am.

I did manage to find some evening quiet time to knit by the light of a cozy fire. My ankle socks (using the Super Simple Short Sock pattern by Radiant Twist) are progressing quite nicely. Have we talked about how much I love this yarn? (Yarn Pirate Merino Sock in Kalamata.) I really love how this project fits into the center zip pocket of my Namaste bag, which could be why they are moving so quickly…

Yep, there’s some pooling there, but I don’t care. I love it anyway.

I returned to civilization this morning, in a bit of a hurry to make progress on another big project: packing up my life. I move to base camp for the summer in a few weeks, and after that, I head to New Home to start graduate school. Didn’t make sense to rent my little house through the summer only to come back and pack everything, so pack up now I must. I think it will get easier once I actually go rent a storage unit this week so that I have a place to put all of the boxes I am filling. Today I’ve been working on the kitchen. See?

Off to pack some more and enjoy the evening light.

rugby and not quite rusted root.

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Quick post this morning — aiming to have a real FO post for you soon! I have finished the ribbed waistband and one cap sleeve of Rusted Root. Another sleeve, a few rows of neckline ribbing, and a good blocking are all that I have left to do. I am super excited to finish this. I started this sweater in September with a minimal understanding of ease and shaping, and despite this, I think it will be the perfect size. Here’s a quick look:

Also, I need to share more Boh ridiculousness with you. I brought in the rugby ball bag this weekend, and yesterday he became very interested in the contents. I got out a ball and he alternately chased it and ran away from it for a good 45 minutes. More affirmation that he really is MY dog. I took a pretty funny camera video, but I don’t see the format supported here in WordPress, so I’ll just share an image and leave the goofiness to your imagination.

carnage.

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This guy:

Saw this, a bee-yoo-ti-ful Sunday Market Shawl, blocking:

and, in the middle of the night, decided to do something like this:

A few more pictures of the carnage:

I stayed up REALLY late trying to finish this for a dear friend’s birthday — unraveling the dropped stitches took forever. This is beyond repair — or at least my capacity for repair. There are at least four shredded sections of the shawl, and I can’t bear to unravel what’s left right now. Back to the drawing board? I still need a birthday present — was hoping to give this to her over the weekend.

Hard to stay mad at this dog. Sigh. At least today is Friday.

getting there…

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My Sunday Market Shawl is coming along — it hangs beautifully, and the gauge is nowhere near as open as I’d expected to get with sock yarn and US 10s. Looking forward to dropping the YOs and stretching this out. Hoping to finish it by the weekend so that last week’s birthday girl can begin enjoying her present!

In other news, I’ve begun the madness of trying to organize and pack my life. (Though I probably won’t move to New Home until August, I move out to the mountains for the summer for work. Lease is up at the end of next month, and May is a crazy work month spent going back and forth between offices.) Packing is rather difficult in a teeny casita, and I’ve realized that I just need to get some of my furniture out of here in order to have space to lay things out and store them well. This morning I posted several things on craigslist — here’s hoping I can create a bit more room to work!

saturday’s a rugby day.

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So is Sunday. No pictures to share, but I spent the weekend volunteering at the D1/D2 Mens/Womens Collegiate Rugby Championship Round of 16. I’m a bit tired, a little sunburnt and a lot happy about the weekend. Saw some fantastic rugby, did lots of volunteering, and spent time with friends who share a love for this game.

Onward to the knitting:

You may recognize the yarn. On Friday, I decided to frog the Lace Ribbon Scarf in favor of something that would go a bit more quickly and perhaps be a bit more useful as an everyday kind of scarf. You may recall that this yarn is for a birthday girl who loves pink. I’m making the Sunday Market Shawl by knitfish/Vanessa Carter, and I must say, this super simple pattern is ingenious: cast on, knit a set up row with yarn overs, knit in stockinette until it is long enough, and then drop the yarn overs to get an open, dropped stitch pattern. I’m already thinking that I want one for myself. (Details: Yarn Pirate Merino/Tencel in I Want Candy, needles are US 10.)

All of the rugby this weekend meant that *someone* was a bit neglected, so I’ll give him his share of the limelight here:

Fast asleep, Friday night. Fast forward to this evening. Though Boh and I got in a great run this afternoon, he is still a bit pouty that no dogs were allowed at the tournament:

As I write this, he is curled up on my pillow. Life is rough. I hope we’ll both sleep well tonight.

a thank you.

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I’m sending off a thank you to the folks I stayed with this week, and thought a little knitted something might be nice to tuck inside. This is a super basic dishcloth pattern — Grandmother’s Favorite, I believe, and it went so quickly that I may need to make a dozen more. Now. (Seriously. These are addicting!) Yarn, for those who want to know, is Peaches and Creme cotton worsted, in an ombre colorway.

Happy Friday, folks!

“why is bad taste ubiquitous?”

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That has absolutely nothing to do with any of the knitting I am going to share with you, even though my clapotis looks more like a blob and less like a glamorous french scarf. Worked on (the also ubiquitous) clapotis yesterday while watching Helvetica (which is far more fun and dramatic in a German accent), and one of the font designers may have said this when asked about Helvetica’s popularity. Love it. T-shirts may be necessary. I’m told that preliminary research into whether or not this could be printed in Helvetica has begun.

Anyway, lots of pictures today. I left the house early yesterday in order to do laundry before work — no time for blogging. First off, I roasted some fennel for dinner on Tuesday night. Yum!

Next up? This morning’s sunrise:

Oooh. Pretty.

Now, onward to the knitting progress.

I am moments from the halfway point of my clapotis (which I am making in Brooks Farm Riata, for those keeping score). I’m not sure if I’m going to have enough yarn to knit the pattern as written — If I can get through the 6th repeat of the straight section before switching to the next skein, I’m golden. If I only get through five, I’ll shorten the straight section by a repeat or two. Now that I am dropping stitches in each repeat, the knitting is moving along more quickly — and it is good TV/conversation knitting, except for the SSK and YO in one of the rows — I may have fudged this a few times so as to not rip back, as Riata is fairly sticky and I don’t think the errors are noticeable in the least.

Boh is a bit concerned about dropping stitches, as is evident from this photo:

I’m not sure that there is anything Boh isn’t worried about…

distraction #2.

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Again with the need to be knitting something that isn’t fiddly. I had at least 120 yards of leftovers from the third skein of the Cascade 220 I used for the pinwheel blanket, and somehow the magic of ravelry led me to cast on for the hurricane hat by Andrea Goutier (size 7 needles). This is a fast, fun pattern with lovely crown decreasing that maintains the purl ridge swirl ’til the end.

I may have a problem. How many hats does one person need?

I mean, I don’t have a grey hat yet…

Off to work.

distraction.

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Oops…I may have accidentally knit a beret — Le Slouch, by Wendy Bernard, to be exact. How did that happen?

I wanted something simple and soft to work on…and even though spring weather is definitely here, early desert mornings remain cold enough for beautiful headgear all through the summer.

I didn’t want a full-on beret, but rather a comfy hat that wouldn’t flatten my curly hair in the morning. I followed Wendy’s instructions for the stockinette version, using US 8 and 9 DPNs, and began the decreases at just under 5 inches. The yarn is Malabrigo in colorway verdeazul, and while the pattern called for roughly 200 yards, I’m wondering if I can get another full hat out of what is left — looks like I used just over half the skein.

I also managed to cast on for the Lace Ribbon Scarf. I can see how folks get into a rhythm with this pattern, as I sat down to get started and looked up 10 rows later. This Yarn Pirate booty is tough to photograph, as the tencel in the yarn seems to make it super shiny to my camera. In real life, it has a subtle sheen that I think will really add to the beauty of the scarf.

Also, more evidence that my dog is absurd: